Back to business

Hello there...it's been a three years break from blogging. Having children did make a stop to my other activities, I kind of had thought I could manage some kind of small extra personal things going on, but soon I realised that not really. Having two small kids and 8 hour office work did use my time in complete. But dreaming is allowed and now I am back in business.

Big changes has also happened; I have moved to my native Finland and I am very happy about it. My decade in Barcelona has come to an end. Finally everything happened very quickly from the initial decision in November -16 (I had a minor personal nervous breakdown on a street and it could not be overlooked anymore that I wasn't happy living in Barcelona) to the final move on September -17 that I really had no time to reflect the change. To have a "Farewell to Barcelone" -series or something. But it will come one day.

So one part of my dream has been accomplished when moving to the south of Finland. (I am actually from the north part of the country, but happy to live here in the south as well.) Second part would be to go back to the path of my studies that is textile and clothing, to be creative and manage to have living out of it. I am working on it... One step for that was to order this wonderful inspiring book of Daniella Kryssa; "Your inner Critic Is a Big Jerk". It indeed is. I already have managed to avoid some excuses that are listed in the book; I won't go for the path of cleaning the house, doing errands etc. as I have already done that in my past. In 2011-12 I had a break from work and I messed my free time with those kind of excuses so I won't fail into that trap anymore.  I must admit though that from those years I started to navigate more on the internet and reading blogs and trying to figure out what could be my share of it so my time didn't go completely to excuses
Other big time inspiration for me is the Fly Girl Blog that I have been checking once in a while during many years. It must have been from this Andrea Pippins blog that I actually got to know about this book.

I hope this is a start for something new. Now at least I am living a really nice moment in my life. see you soon!

Your Inner Critic Is a Big jerk by Daniela Kryssa

Pretty Ballerinas, made in Menorca

I bought new shoes, new ballerinas. Last autumn I threw away my old ones as that way I was obliged to buy news. I had in mind typical black, leather ballerinas, but those were not available in the outlet of Pretty Ballerinas, so I ended up buying these blue/jeans colored.

Pretty Ballerinas is a company dated back to 1918. Shoes are hand made, flat shoes made in Menorca. The collections are always very colorful and funny, but you always find classic models as well. It is a very versatile brand. Made in Spain!

I'm afraid I bought too small ones. Maybe the age or the maternity has made my feet bigger. This is so annoying that finally after many years of thinking I manage to buy Pretty Ballerinas and then what I do is that I don't know to choose the size. I miss practise.

My possibly too small ballerinas.

Beautiful garden, model Marilyn, Pretty Ballerinas

Always so attractive leopard print, model Rosario, Pretty Ballerinas.

New starting

After almost one year of being quiet I am thinking of returning to write and post here in StylePigeon. I kind of need it. A platform to speak about textiles, good adds, great things in Finland and Spain or differences between those two lovely countries.

An inspiration also comes from a blog I read once in a while: Fly Fabulously Creative by Andrea Pippin. She is a creative artist and very inspiring and intelligent person. I admire her and her ideas. Not sure how did I ended up to her blog years ago, but her analyze of Pantone’s 2012 color of the year was astonishing (post on 9th jan 2012). I agreed that the Tangerine Tango was out of fashion already when Pantone chose it as the color of the year, but I would never have been able to explain why. Andrea Pippin could do that.

Her call for #letsmakestuff2014 and "we doodle" was also great. Its a pity I didn’t notice those doodle challenges back in 2014.

I try to have this year 2015 as my “letsmakestuffyear” and also to oblige me to find time to do my things. And remember Andrea's tip of the week: You don't have to say it, its also ok to be quiet (post on 17th March). Quietness has never been a problem for me.

Spring is here

Better late than never

Fashion Revolution day was already over a week ago, on 24th April. This is my contribution to it. The clothes were worn indside-out and pictures taken on that day, only the post is late.

The Fashion Revolution day tries to evoke curiosity and awareness of who made your clothes. It uses the power of fashion to change the attitude in fashion business towards more responsible manufacturing and buying of clothes and accessories. Pretty hard task, but I'm hopeful that every year things get better if we all participate to impulse the change. Little by little.

Me wearing a linen shirt by HAKEI, made in Spain, and my son 

is wearing Marimekko's stripes, made in Finland.

More granny's squares

I made this scarf actually before the blanket. The story was that in 2012 I was planning to sent the yarns to my mum so she could crochet this scarf for me. Give her something to do basically. Unfortunately my mum passed away before I got to do this so finally I made the scarf by myself and it took quite a while. Last year I had it ready but didn't use it not even once. My plan was to buy a jeans jacket and wear it with that but until now I haven't bought the jacket. The one that I would like to have from Pepe Jeans has never been in sales and I find 145 eur a bit expensive for a jeans jacket. Anyway this year I bought a wool coat from Mango and it pairs well with it. I also have a military green parka and these granny's squares fits that too.

The yarn is Drops Alpaca, 100% pure alpaca from the best yarn shop "All you knit is love" in Barcelona.

A good old Grandma's square

As a like handicrafts I was delighted to do a blanket to my baby. Nice to do crochet and have a purpose for it. Crochet is nice, but many times I find it hard to imagine something useful to do. Well, this time a blanket was more than welcome and as it is for a baby its not too big so pretty fast to finalize. As I like old things, vintage etc. a good old granny's square was a perfect pattern to do. Color inspiration I got from an old Gloria magazine where there was a picture of one big blanket. The yarn is "7 veljestä" from Novita bought already in summer from Finland. Unfortunately the yarn has 20% of polyester in it, I would have preferred 100% wool, but as they had a great selection of colors I decided to accept the polyester as otherwise I probably wouldn't have made the blanket. This was an easy option this time.

The final blanket

Color options for the blanket

Organic, raw and ecological

Last year just before my baby was born I received a package from Finland. It contained a magazine about babies, kitchen towel, ecological cleaning rags and raw chocolate. What a wonderful gift! I was excited about all things and apart from the Vauva-magazine other stuff were new acquintances for me.

I had never heart about Kierti, a Finnish company started in 2008. All their products focus on sustainability. The items are mostly cleaning items. They sell washable bamboo and hemp cleaning rags and also hemp yarn if you prefer to produce your cleaning rag by yourself.

Other new thing is raw chocolate. In Helsinki there is the company Goodio with a big heart and sweet tooth that is producing small scale raw chocolate. Raw chocolate is chocolate that is produced using only original raw materials and without using heating in the production. This way the chocolate doesn't loose all its precious materials; vitamins, enzymes etc. The taste is quite different than milk chocolate, but a bit similar as dark chocolate. I recommend to try this out.